New Online Professional Development Workshops of UBC Centre for Cultural Planning and Development

Cultural Entrepreneurship (12 - 26 February and 19 May – 2 June 2015)
Cultural Planning: An International Perspective (22 January - 5 February and 30 April -14 May 2015)

A legacy of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the UBC Centre for Cultural Planning and Development is an international centre dedicated to the creation and strengthening of a global community of professionals advancing cultural development as a vital component of successful communities and sustainable growth. The UBC Centre for Cultural Planning and Development offers two new sessions of online professional development workshops taught by Lidia Varbanova to be held in Winter and Spring 2015: Cultural Entrepreneurship (12 - 26 February and 19 May – 2 June 2015) and Cultural Planning: An International Perspective (22 January - 5 February and 30 April -14 May 2015). In each of these workshops models, case studies and examples from different countries around the world will be examined; key issues identified and strategic solutions discussed; and innovative approaches to cultural policy and planning and the development of cultural organisations will be considered.

These workshops are designed to meet the education and training needs of administrators, designers, consultants, planners and economic and community development professionals and include online discussions, case studies, and opportunities to engage and network with an expert instructor and other professionals in an interactive online learning environment. Workshops can be taken individually, or applied towards the UBC Certificate in Cultural Planning – an international professional development programme delivered entirely online.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, On the Move and Theatre Without Borders will host a Cultural Mobility Symposium and Conference to announce the official launch of the first-ever Cultural Mobility Funding Guide for the USA: Theatre, Performing Arts and Dance. The launch will initiate a day-long symposium featuring morning presentations from cultural mobility experts, funders, cultural exchange organizations, and practitioners. Professionals representing institutions from around the world will join afternoon working sessions to address a diverse selection of topics including artists and human rights, socially engaged performance, general funding practices, international collaboration, and practical challenges. The day will offer rare networking opportunities for international practitioners and service organizations.

This event grows out of an unusual inter-continental collaboration between the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (thesegalcenter.org), the European cultural mobility information network On the Move (on-the-move.org) and the U.S.-based grass-roots international network Theatre Without Borders (theatrewithoutborders.com).

The new Cultural Mobility Funding Guide for the USA: Theatre, Performing Arts and Dance will provide a free and user-friendly online guide to funding for international exchange for artists traveling to and from the USA. This guide builds upon On the Move's existing co-produced guides for artists and cultural professionals in Europe, Asia, and Arab countries (on-the-move.org/funding). The main objective of theses guides is to make available, in a transparent way, the existing information on funding for the international mobility of artists and cultural operators and to give input to funders and policy makers on how to fill in the existing gaps in funding for international cultural exchange.

For reservations and further information please contact: Camille Gaume, cgaume@gc.cuny.edu

Organised by the pan-African Association for Asian Studies in Africa (A-ASIA) in cooperation with the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS), the conference on Asian Studies in Africa: the Challenges and Prospects of a New Axis of Intellectual Interaction will be the first ever conference held in Africa to bring together a multidisciplinary ensemble of scholars and institutions from the continent and the rest of the world with a shared focus on Asia and Asian-African intellectual interactions.

A-ASIA was established in November 2012 in Chisamba, Zambia, on the occasion of the Asian Studies in Africa roundtable, which was organised by the University of Zambia (UNZA), the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and the South-South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of Development (SEPHIS).

Through panels and roundtables, the conference will seek to assess the prospects for Asian Studies in Africa in a global context by addressing a number of theoretical and empirical questions that such an enterprise will raise: How should Asian studies be framed in Africa? Are Asian studies relevant for Africa? What is the current state of capacity (institutional, intellectual, professional, and so forth) for Asian studies in Africa, and can this be improved and how? How do Asian studies (and should they?) dovetail into the broader field of Area Studies, as it has been developed mainly in Western institutions? Are new narratives required for understanding the very visible contemporary presence of Asia in Africa and Africa in Asia?

The organizers invite proposals for (institutional) panels, roundtables, papers and book presentations in the fields of Asian-African interactions studies. Proposals should be submitted in English, French or Portuguese by online submission form before 1 April 2014.

Call for Papers9th Annual Conference of the Association of Cultural Management in Germany, Austria and SwitzerlandHeilbronn, Germany, 15-17 January 2015

With significant restructuring of international arts and cultural exchange, especially due to the digital revolution and the shifts in European societies caused by immigration, the field of cultural management is challenged to adopt an open attitude and explore new questions. Europe has witnessed incisive phases of internationalization through colonialism and post-colonial theories.

Simultaneously, it is experiencing dynamic changes led by the influences of technology and the exponential growth of the cultural and creative industries. So questions regarding the role of European culture and the international perception of Europe are pivotal. Some of the numerous questions that have to be addressed in the context of the 9th annual conference of the Association of Cultural Management are therefore:

What key competencies does a cultural manager require to work as a broker between different cultures and different cultural value systems?

How can future cultural managers be prepared for tasks in an international environment?

What roles do European cultural goods and national cultural management approaches play in the globalized world?

Who holds the interpretive power over what we transport abroad as culture and hence as an image of ourselves? Is culture constrained by the role of the soft diplomat?

To learn from scientists who are developing new cultural management approaches and thought patterns in national contexts that can be applied internationally, as well as from practitioners successfully working in international organizations or projects.

To reflect on the role of (European) culture as well as that of common external cultural policy in the context of globalization.

Contributions in German or English should relate to unpublished projects which are concluded, or still in progress. The submitted texts should not exceed 500 words. Review criteria are: the originality of the proposition, the methodical approach, as well as the practical application of the study.

Never before have the world's cities faced such daunting challenges. While 50% of the world currently lives in cities, by 2050 that figure will be nearly 70%. It is estimated that as many as 9,000 totally new cities will be needed to accommodate this growth. Unless drastically different ways of living materialize quickly, over-crowding, congestion, poverty and low quality of life will beset the new cities. These urban challenges could find workable solutions in technological and social innovation.

Public and private City actors have the tools to analyze data for better decisions, anticipate problems to resolve them proactively and coordinate resources to operate effectively.

Our towns and cities are going through a transition phase from one form of society to another. The challenges are significant. What type of urban community do we wish to live in? And how do we arrive at it? What can cities do to attract creative, entrepreneurial citizens to infuse innovation and sustainable growth into their economies?

Smart cities will drive sustainable economic growth of the future.

There is a need to consolidate the various views of the city of the future and to mark the direction cities are taking. This attempt at consolidation makes the core programme of the 38th Annual Congress of INTA, including two days of intense debates, technical visits, plenty of policy exchanges and interactions and Business-to-Business opportunities, participation of key players from industry, local authorities, government agencies, and academics. Cities and companies from Estonia, Scandinavia, Colombia, Japan, Ecuador, Taiwan, France, Singapore, Spain and Benin will compare their vision and model of the city of tomorrow.

The Association of European Cities and Regions for Culture Les Rencontres announces the organisation of its next conference La Rencontre de Fontenay-sous-Bois to be held in Fontenay-sous-Bois (in the vicinity of Paris) from 5 to 7 March 2015. It will be devoted to the topical theme on Arts / Cultures / Migrations.

In a growing context of populist ideas and behaviours as well as inward-looking nationalisms on the European continent, this conference is aimed towards encouraging participants to consider migrations as sources for artistic enrichment and cultural impact for European societies. Every country has been characterised by its own migration history. More and more, migrants are becoming fundamental pillars of our feeling of multi-cultural citizenship. Thus, it is necessary to promote a constructive dialogue on cultural differences, emphasizing their value and their creativity as to reinforce social inclusion, and to fight against discrimination and prejudices.

La Rencontre de Fontenay-sous-Bois is organized in collaboration with the Choreographic Development Centre du Val-de-Marne La Briqueterie on the occasion of the 18th Val-de-Marne Dance Biennale and within the framework of the European project Migrant Bodies.

Is culture the fourth pillar of sustainability alongside the ecological, economic and social aspects? How does culture act as a catalyst for ecological sustainability, human well-being and economic viability? What would our futures look like if sustainability was embedded in the multiple dimensions of culture? This landmark conference, to take place in Helsinki, on 6-8 May 2015, will explore the roles and meanings of culture in sustainable development. The new ideas generated in the conference will inform and advance the understanding of sustainability with cultural studies and practices, and vice versa.

The conference is being organised by COST Action Investigating Cultural Sustainability (www.culturalsustainability.eu) and hosted by the University of Jyväskylä Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy. The conference will explore theories and concepts; policies and governance; and practices and methodologies that explicitly analyse multiple dimensions of culture in sustainable development. Examples that illustrate and reveal the roles of culture in sustainable futures may be found in livelihoods, everyday life practices from housing to consumption, food systems, tourism, landscapes, heritage, media, education, planning, architecture, design and more. These experiences will be brought together by scientists, practitioners and policy-makers in plenaries and smaller sessions based on scientific, artistic, dialogue and hybrid presentational formats.

The deadline for papers and other forms of presentations is 5 December 2014. Selected full papers and other contributions will be published in the conference proceedings and in a book within the recently-launched book series Routledge Studies in Culture and Sustainable Development.

The European League of Institutes of the Arts - ELIA is organising the 7th ELIA Teachers' Academy - ENACT: Learning in/through the Arts, to be hosted by Fontys School of Fine and Performing Arts, which brings together lecturers from Higher Arts Education across Europe and beyond. The 3-day programme will offer keynote speeches, presentations, workshops and panel discussions. The in-depth exchange of ideas at the ELIA Teachers' Academy in Tilburg will provide a critical framework for informed discussions and professional networking.

Making and teaching the arts are practices that intervene in a specific way, both in education and in society at large. The arts practice has its own knowledge base and logic; it evolves by creating and doing. The same can be said about education, where learning environments are created by teachers and students in the work and on the spot. On the one hand, we see how art educators bring artistic strategies into schools and higher arts institutions. This way of learning in/through the arts requires a distinct set of competences and habits of mind. On the other hand, we see how artists and designers introduce educational practices to their artistic work, be it in the studio, the museum, the public space or on stage.

For the 7th Elia Teachers' Academy the organiser invites artists, art professors and art educators to showcase their own practices in the arts and education, be it in a presentation, a pecha kucha, a workshop, or another suitable format. What are the specificities of artistic strategies employed in teaching and learning, and what kind of educational practices do artists use to put their work into action?

Contact: ELIA - The European League of Institutes of the Arts, Beulingstraat 8, 1017 BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands, e-mail: elia@elia-artschools.org

Dutch Textile Art, Craft and Design

17th ETN ConferenceLeiden, Netherlands, 16-17 May 2015

The European Textile Network is organising a two-days conference on Dutch Textile Art, Craft and Design at the Museum voor Volkenkunde (the National Museum of Ethnography) in Leiden, including textile tours to Tilburg, Amsterdam, Rijswijk, Zaandam and Marken, Leuven and Antwerp and a Jacquard workshop at the Tilburg Textile Museum. The ETN Conference, part of the Dutch Textiel Festival organised by the STIDOC foundation, an association made up of seven Dutch textile-related organisations, is promising a unique insight into the community of textile creators, educators and curators in the Netherlands.

The topics and speakers at the 17th ETN Conference on 16 May include:

Textiles in the context of the Stedelijk Museum and Dutch Design, Ingeborg de Roode

Readable structures, Joke Robaard

The TextielLab, a laboratory for research and experiments at the TextielMuseum, Hebe Verstappen

Innovative Textiles, Lenneke Langenhuijsen and Brecht Duijf

The Importance of craftsmanship in Barbara Broekman´s work, Barbara Broekman

Material Mentality?, Simone de Waart

3D Printed Fashion: From the Computer to the Catwalk, company Materialise

The 22nd Jeunesses International Violin Competition "Dinu Lipatti" 2015 announces the call for artists to the attention of music institutions, conservatoires, academies, schools, societies, violin players and all those interested in music. It will be held in Bucharest, Romania, 16 – 23 May 2015. Age categories are the following: up to 14, 14-18 and 18-30 years old.

Prizes: In a total amount of 10,000 Euro, consisting in money, instruments or scholarships.

SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, is the world's largest international association of professionals and enthusiasts interested in intercultural education, training and research. SIETAR Europa Congress 2015 entitled Refreshing the Cultural Paradigm will be held in Valencia, Spain on 21 - 23 May 2015. This congress welcomes all those whose life and work puts them at the interface of cultures, from the perspectives of economy, society, and education with the aim of reshaping intercultural discourse, questioning our current cultural paradigms and exploring new thinking to help us navigate complexity in our emerging global world.

With an aim to re-examine our cultural dimensions, understandings and paradigms, the organiser invites submissions that question, critique, explore and refresh our cultural paradigms and theories, share new methods and best practices. The organiser invites those engaged in business, training and research (including independent consultants, education, organisations) shaping European public sphere (NGOs, governmental organisations and institutions) as well as media and arts to participate and share contributions from all disciplines and fields that deal with intercultural issues.

Conference on the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions

Ten Years After its Adoption, Issues and Challenges for Cultural Policies of StatesQuebec, Canada, 28-30 May 2015

The Conference will mark the 10th anniversary of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions adopted in October 2005 by UNESCO's General Conference. It will allow for a review of the Convention's achievements and to identify challenges State Parties should consider in the coming years, especially given the current issues and the multiplicity of referentials that are questioning current cultural policies. The Conference will bring together national and international experts, and will foster exchanges between established and emerging researchers, policymakers and civil society stakeholders who, in the past 15 years, have collaborated in giving effect to the international legal instrument.

Objectives:

Mobilize the academic, cultural and governmental sectors around the issues that have led Canada and Quebec to play a lead role for the adoption of the Convention;

Raise awareness amongst the next generation of researchers in the field of human and social sciences to the issues and challenges of the Convention, by providing it with an opportunity to acquire the necessary knowledge and to exchange with established researchers and other stakeholders;

Promote cooperation between universities, disciplines, across Canada, at a continental and international level, as well as a sharing of experiences with representatives from the broader civil society, so that the knowledge sharing can be applied and beneficial to all;

Contribute to the development of the community of practice concerned by the application of the Convention, more specifically specific and comparative case studies, as well as through national and international examples.

While taking into account the cross-cutting issues of digitization and of economic development, themes cutting across the following panels will be favoured:

Panel 1: Rethinking the role of cultural policies for the protection and the promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions;

Panel 2: Culture as a lever for the development and strengthening of societies;

Panel 3: The linkages/relations between the Convention and trade agreements;

Panel 4: The Convention faced with new challenges: future actors and priority areas for its implementation.

We Are Museums is a platform for all the challenges that await museums in a globalized and more complex ecosystem. Over the last two years, 3D printing, copyright issues, digital strategy building, evaluation, smart business models and groundbreaking projects have been covered by outstanding senior professionals from the most renowned institutions worldwide.

We Are Museums is an empowering event, curating talks that are both inspiring for the future and helpful for the present. Through plenary sessions, workshops and collective work, participants will be able to be an active part of the future of museums and to nurture their work experience with tools, skills and fresh perspectives.

Registration for the conference is currently open at the We Are Museums website www.wearemuseums.com

Heritage, Culture and Tourism

London, UK, 1-5 June 2015

Public Administration International (PAI) specializes in management consultancy and development services internationally for organizations in, and associated with, the public sector. The study programme on Heritage, Culture and Tourism: Policy and Practice for Maximising Results will take place in central London, and is designed mainly for policy-makers and senior experts working in government ministries and agencies and in non-governmental organisations concerned with the management and funding of heritage conservation and tourism. Applications will also be welcome from those in the voluntary and private sector who wish to gain insights into how heritage, culture and tourism contribute to economic development and to engage in dialogue with officials and experts with responsibilities in this field. The Programme Director is Dr. June Taboroff, an international expert on culture in development and tourism planning, with broad experience of institutional development and policy formulation in more than 60 countries.

The study programme will:

Broaden knowledge and understanding of the issues surrounding heritage, culture and tourism policy and practice

Examine the relationships between heritage, culture and tourism and other government priorities such as economic development and education

Raise awareness of the opportunities and challenges surrounding heritage, culture and tourism and suggest ways in which they can be effectively addressed in different country contexts

Provide opportunities to develop new networks with knowledgeable professionals.

1st International Research Conference on Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship Training and Education

Call for Papers for a Book on Teaching and Learning Cultural EntrepreneurshipDuluth, Minnesota, USA, 10 - 12 June 2015

Submissions are invited for a forthcoming book to be published in June 2015, entitled Teaching and Learning Cultural Entrepreneurship: A global comparative analysis of course and programme content in university- and community-based education for the cultural and creative industries. Contributions to the book will be presented as part of the 1st International Research Conference on Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship Training and Education, to be held from 10 - 12 June 2015 at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, USA. This volume will be compiled by an editorial team comprised of Prof. Dr. Olaf Kuhlke (College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, Duluth), Prof. Dr. Annick Schramme (Antwerp Management School, University of Antwerp) and Drs. Rene Kooyman (Ars Nova, Utrecht, The Netherlands).

The book will concentrate on a number of current discussions. The editorial team is inviting contributions to a first comparative volume on cultural entrepreneurship education. Papers should address at least two of the five following thematic areas, and focus on a cultural entrepreneurship program, degree, course, set of courses, or extra-curricular, community-directed education: Curriculum Design; Theoretical Roots and Approaches; Labour Market Developments and Job Opportunities; Practitioners Critique; Innovative and Traditional Entrepreneurship Programs. This unique publication invites contributions from the global research community studying cultural entrepreneurship and the evolution of training for the creative industries. It will comprise academic articles that address theory, research and practical issues related to current developments within the field of education in cultural entrepreneurship, ranging from educational research in teaching creativity and innovation, to the entrepreneurial dimension of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) (Antwerp Management School, 2014). The book will be published by Eburon Academic Publishers (Distributed in North America through the University of Chicago Press) and will appear in press in June 2015.

St Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, New York, USA (www.sfc.edu) is pleased to host the Sixth International Conference on Consciousness, Theatre, Literature, and the Arts. Abstracts are invited for papers relating any aspect of consciousness (as defined in a range of disciplines involved with consciousness studies) to any aspect of theatre, performance, literature, music, fine arts, media arts and any sub-genre of those.

Cultural and Creative Industries' Social Effects: Measuring the Unexpected

Bilbao, Spain, 11-12 June 2015

Organised by the University of Deusto in partnership with the European Network on Cultural Management and Cultural Policy Education (ENCATC) and the World Leisure Organisation, this event led by renowned experts will explore the cultural and creative industries (CCI) phenomenon to further the debate about the challenges and opportunities they offer and the difficulties involved in their consolidation from an international comparative perspective. In particular, it will address the progress made in recent years in creating methods and tools aimed at measuring and assessing the social impacts, often unforeseen, of CCIs.

The 10th edition of OcioGune is structured around three Ideas Forums that seek to examine the emerging CCI phenomenon from three approaches that will be the main challenges faced by cultural and creative industries in the coming years:

Ideas Forum I - The social effects of CCIs: Progress and issues to explore;

Ideas Forum II - Tools for measuring contingencies in CCIs;

Ideas Forum III - Artistic creativity and digital innovation.

Experts from different countries in Europe, North America and Latin America will present their most recent contributions to the impact evaluation of creative and cultural industries.

First International Baltic Symposium on Science and Technology EducationSiauliai, Lithuania, 15 - 18 June 2015

The First International Baltic Symposium on Science and Technology Education, BalticSTE2015 will bring together policy makers, curriculum developers, scientists, science and university educators and researchers, science teacher association officers, science teachers and all who are interested in science and technology education.

The main questions to be discussed include:

History of S&T Education in Baltic States and neighbouring countries;

Methods and Strategies for Assessment of S&T Education;

Improving Quality of Science Teacher Training;

Visualization in S&T Education;

Problems of Teaching the Nature of Science;

Implementation of International Projects Focused on S&T Education, etc.

The Association Les Rencontres announces the organisation of its next conference in Mons, Belgium, the European Capital of Culture 2015. La rencontre de Mons, entitled Virtual Culture, Real Responsibilities: Which Concrete Applications Today?, will be held on 18 - 20 June 2015.

The orientations proposed by the European Commission as far as cultural issues go are strongly troubling. They are questioning again our system of values: copyright, linguistic and cultural special features, the financing of cultural works, and fiscal harmonisation.

The philosophy of culture is implicated, a heritage that will be replaced by a world in which the word "industry" is more important than the word "cultural". The words "demand" and "entertainment" will be more important than the words "offer" and "culture". Does Europe still have a cultural ambition?

Cities in a Climate of Change: Public Art and Environmental and Social Ecologies

Call for PresentationsAuckland, New Zealand, 30 June – 4 July 2015

The Elam School of Fine Arts at The National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries (NICAI), University of Auckland, New Zealand and the Shandong University of Art and Design (SUAD), People's Republic of China, welcome proposals for academic presentations for the Cities in a Climate of Change: Public Art and Environmental and Social Ecologies conference.

The conference seeks to activate an expanded understanding of public art and urban place-making practices. The organizers intend to provoke dialogue amongst experts from a broad range of fields including art, performance, architecture, urban planning, design, social science, public health and climate-change science amongst other disciplines. Presentations should address the expanded field of public art and place-making urban improvement/development practices proposed in the conference theme and respond to one or more of the following propositions: Provocation; Diversification; Participation; Agitation; Cohesion; Identification; Transformation.

In keeping with a focus on the issues raised by ideas and practices of public art and place-making activities in regard to positive environmental and social change, the University of Auckland and Shandong University of Art and Design welcome a wide range of presentation modes and/or activities.

Abstract submissions are due by 30 March 2015.

For more information, please visit iapa2015.nz or contact the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries (NICAI), The University of Auckland, Engineering Building, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand; www.auckland.ac.nz

The conference Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Cultural Heritage is organized by the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage (IIICH), University of Birmingham and the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP), University of Illinois. The conference offers a venue for exploring three critical interactions in this trans-Atlantic dialogue: heritage, tourism and traditions. North America and Europe fashioned two dominant cultural tropes from their powerful and influential intellectual traditions, which have been enacted in Central/South America and Africa, everywhere implicating indigenous cultures. These tropes are contested and linked through historical engagement and contemporary everyday connections. How do heritages travel? How is trans-Atlantic tourism shaped by heritage? To what extent have traditions crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic? How have heritage and tourism economies emerged based upon flows of peoples and popular imaginaries?

The goal of the conference is to be simultaneously open-ended and provocative. The organizers welcome papers from academics across a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, art history, architecture, business, communication, ethnology, heritage studies, history, geography, landscape architecture, literary studies, media studies, museum studies, popular culture, postcolonial studies, sociology, tourism, urban studies, etc. Topics of interest to the conference include, but are not limited to the heritage of trans-Atlantic encounters, travelling intangible heritages, heritage flows of popular culture, re-defining heritage beyond the postcolonial, the heritage of Atlantic crossings, world Heritage of the Atlantic periphery, rooting and routing heritage, community and nation on display, visualising the trans-Atlantic world.

Abstracts of 300 words with full contact details should be sent as soon as possible, but no later than 15 December 2014 to ironbridge@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Bamako Symposium 2015, organized as collaboration between Balani's Association and Nka Foundation, will bring together creative practitioners, theorists and cultural entrepreneurs from around the world to interact and exchange dialogues on the useful and non-useful impacts of media arts on the global marketplace of ideas. The symposium reckons a major issue in Africa's development is sustainability. Through the years, many developmental initiatives have continued to emerged, but failed to roll out and be sustained. With the practical acts and theoretical presentations, the organisers aim to promote critical dialogues on the best practices around the world on how the media arts feed civilizations. Along these lines, the symposium asks: How are the media arts worldwide feeding civilizations? What are the implications for tapping the abundant local resources in Mali in the 21st century?

The call for proposals includes theoretical presentations and practical acts such as workshops, mini-projects and artistic interventions involving the diversity of expressions in and applications via digital arts, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual arts, Internet arts, interactive arts technologies, computer robotics, and the arts as biotechnology in society. The organisers anticipate that the cross-cultural interaction and exchange on the challenges and possibilities of media arts in diverse cultures will not only lend new trends to Malian media arts, it will result in personal or professional growth of international participants.

The symposium starts with workshops and artistic interventions, which will run from 17 to 24 July 2015. The Médina Galerie Mediatheque will be the primary site for the workshops; alternative sites for workshops, mini-projects and interventions can be proposed. Exhibitions of the results of the various workshops/interventions and paper presentations will run from 27 July to 31 July 2015. Abstracts deadline is 25 June 2015 The deadline for the full text submissions is 12 July 2015.

Dubbed Indaba2015, the conference on Harnessing the Arts to Break Cultural Barriers, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 7 - 8 August 2015, is organised by the Matasia Arts Center, an international multidisciplinary arts hub. This international conference is expected to bring together artists from 170 countries. Based in Matasia, Kenya, the Center's mission is to promote intercultural exchange among artists globally. The focus of the discussions at the conference will include:

Translating works of art for broader appeal;

How the Internet is giving artists a global platform to sell their work;

This course uses a value-based approach to the interaction between economic processes, the arts and culture. It includes an economic primer for those who want to know the basic economic principles. The value based approach that this course covers is intended to anticipate, understand and deal with the big changes in the economy and in the cultural sector that are currently underway. The creative industries are about the production of meanings. What, then, is creativity? How to engender creative environments? The cultural sector is about meanings. Why then, is it running the risk of being marginalized? What could cultural leaders do differently to improve the standing of the arts and culture and increase the necessary support? This course introduces a cultural-economic perspective into the process of valuation and valorisation of culture and the arts.

The course is led by professor Arjo Klamer, Cultural Economist at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Participants who either are professionally involved in cultural organizations, governments, foundations or creative industries, or are studying the world of art and culture, will learn about strategies, (cultural) entrepreneurship, marketing, and creative financing. Next to this the current development within the creative industries and their connection to the social and cultural changes will be explored.

Cities and regions in Australia and New Zealand have experienced more than 30 years of social and demographic dynamism as a consequence of micro economic reform, greater engagement with the global networks of production, new patterns of migration, rising national prosperity and the shift towards a service-based economy. For some regions, cities and towns change has resulted in growth, while for others the last three decades have been marked by fluctuating fortunes and even decline. Public sector reforms at the national, provincial/state and local levels have contributed to these processes of change, calling into question both previous paradigms and policy settings. These changes have had immense impacts for academics and other researchers involved in the study of regions, resulting in the development of new theoretical positions and the need to engage with a much broader set of intellectual arguments. The first Regional Studies Association event in Australasia seeks to contribute to the growth in academic dialogue at the local and global scales.

Rethinking the Region and Regionalism in Australasia Conference seeks contributions from researchers, policy makers and practitioners working in all areas of regional analysis, especially those focused on Australasia. One aspect of the themes that could be considered and will be welcomed is the cultural dimension of change, as reflected in emerging approaches to addressing change by local governments across the world.

Please submit proposals for papers in the form of a 400-500 word abstract through the Regional Studies Association's online portal by 11 May 2015.

Inaugural Conference on Cultural Political Economy: Putting Culture in its Place in Political Economy

Lancaster, UK, 1 - 2 September 2015

Cultural Political Economy (CPE) is an emerging and still developing trans-disciplinary approach oriented to post-disciplinary horizons. It engages with 'cultural turns' in the study of political economy to enhance its interpretive and explanatory power. Intellectually CPE originated in a synthesis of critical discourse analysis, critical political economy, neo-Gramscian state theory, neo-Gramscian international political economy, the regulation approach, feminism, post-colonialism, governmentality and governance studies. This two-day post-disciplinary conference will give researchers and post-graduate students an opportunity to examine and debate the philosophical and methodological foundations of CPE and to explore its substantive implications for research. It invites discussion at the interface of 'cultural turns', critical realism, critical discourse analysis and political economy. Specifically, it focuses on the cultural (and semiotic) dimensions of political economy considered both as a field of inquiry and as an ensemble of social relations.

In the light of multiple crises at many sites and scales in the global economic, political and social order, the organizers invite papers that address theoretical or substantive aspects of the changing nature and dynamic of contemporary social formations and identities.

The European Workshop on Applied Cultural Economics (EWACE) was founded in 1990 and is intended to provide a forum for the development and dissemination of applications of quantitative methods in cultural economics, as well as cultural-related applications of mathematical economics, experimental economics and other quantitative approaches (e.g., applied micro and macroeconometric approaches). Possible topics include aspects of industrial organization of cultural products and services (e.g., pricing, trade), labour market issues of artists (e.g., wages, cultural participation), spillovers and externalities of firms in the cultural sector (agglomeration) and studies on demand elasticities. Participation of interested researchers and policy makers from all countries is welcome.

The workshop will consist of 15-20 papers and the number of participants will be limited to around 25. The conference language is English.

Papers for the 2015 Workshop will be selected on the basis of full drafts. Papers must be sent as e-mail attachments to Antonello Eugenio Scorcuat antonello.scorcu@unibo.it.

For information about accommodation and other organizational enquiries please contact Martin Falk at martin.falk@wifo.ac.at.

Cities, as mirrors and hallmarks of our civilisation, among the most spectacular human inventions, are phenomena which challenge full understanding. They are multilayered compositions of social interactions, economics, infrastructure and a growing number of inhabitants. As Jane Jacobs has said, they are a complex problem of interacting factors that are interrelated into an organic whole; at the same time they generate problems of climate change, crime and inequality and, on the other hand, originate creative solutions as well as hopes and dreams for many. Analysing the city brings together researchers and practitioners from various disciplines: urban planners, economists, sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, historians and art historians. It is this interdisciplinarity and innovation that the organisers hope to attract to the debates and sessions of the 3rd Heritage Forum of Central Europe focused on The City.

The Forum is organised by the International Cultural Centre in Krakow under the auspices of the V4 Cultural Heritage Experts' Working Group, comprising the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic; the Cultural Heritage Department, Prague; the Gyula Forster National Centre for Cultural Heritage Management, Budapest;the International Cultural Centre, Krakow; and the Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic, Bratislava. The organisers invite researchers, specialists and practitioners – experts in heritage, cultural and media studies, urban planners, architects, historians, sociologists, political scientists – to submit proposals dedicated to the city and its links to heritage, presented from the point of view of their respective fields. With Central Europe/V4 serving as a starting point, the submission of papers analyzing both the Central European and the global context of the problem is encouraged, providing innovative approaches, comparative studies and international cases.

Papers on the following themes are welcome:

Who is the city for?

Historic urban landscape

Creative heritage cities

Cities and their narratives

Heritage in conflict

Revitalisation practices in heritage cities

Resilient cities and heritage.

The conference will be held in English. It will result in a peer-reviewed (academic) publication.

Proposals should be submitted by e-mail to heritageforum3@mck.krakow.pl by 20 February 2015. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by mid-April 2015.

Cities are dynamic places, where change is the result of both the innovation which inherently stems from the openness of cities and direct interventions. At the same time, cities are involved in bringing about broader social, political, economic and environmental transformation. What happens in the cities has consequences in terms of global change. While cities themselves are constantly transforming, a debate over the contribution of urban areas to the transformation of societies, economies and political systems is on-going. The political, social, cultural, educational, economic, spatial, and environmental ramifications of transformation within and generated by cities, means that they are seen to hold a position within modern industrialized states as being the drivers of economic and social change; but is this vision of the role played by cities an accurate one? The conference will focus on the European city, but it will not neglect cities elsewhere in the world or different types of urban areas, and encourages submissions beyond Europe. Special attention is given to the transformation of the post-socialist cities in the past two decades, as they provide an important locus of transformation and an interesting case study on the transformative power of cities.

This year the Vienna Institute for Music Sociology is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The organizers are marking the occasion with a two-day interdisciplinary symposium. In their contributions, Howard S. Becker, Marie Buscatto, Tia DeNora, Antoine Hennion, Christian Kaden, Peter J. Martin, Motti Regev and Alfred Smudits will speak about and discuss the historic roots of the specialist area, their current approaches and the future perspectives of music sociology.

The international symposium will take place at the mdw – University of Music and the Performing Arts Vienna. Participation is free. Registration is requested by 31 August 2015 at https://www.mdw.ac.at/ims/50yearsims/registration

Last year more than 50 major award schemes from around the world have announced almost 300 awards for the best museum, heritage and conservation projects. Out of that list of remarkable achievements, a result of long and devoted work of dozens of most accomplished, professional juries, The Best in Heritage has made a selection of the 28 most innovative and inspiring candidates. They represent a balanced variety of best practices, done in different circumstances and contexts.

This 14th edition of The Best in Heritage conference will once more give these projects further well deserved attention of the international professional community. The event promises a packed 2-day programme, with projects from China, the United States, Japan, Iran, Australia, Canada, Russia and Europe taking the stage. A post-conference seminar on Financing Heritage Institutions in Times of Scarcity will take place on 27 September at the Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik. In addition to a global survey of projects of influence, the event will feature rich social and cultural content organised with the help of the local partner Dubrovnik Museums, all taking place in the Renaissance city core of Dubrovnik, UNESCO's World Heritage Site. The conference is ideal for networking, discussing potential collaborations and getting inspired by top rank professionals in personal contact.

The conference is organised in partnership with Europa Nostra, under special patronage of ICOM and under patronage of the City of Dubrovnik.

Digital Heritage 2015, jointly with its affiliated conferences and exhibitions invite you to participate in and contribute to the second international forum for the dissemination and exchange of cutting-edge scientific knowledge on theoretical, generic and applied areas of digital heritage. A federated event of the leading scientific meetings in information technology for heritage, Digital Heritage 2015 will, for the first time, bring together in one venue, with a prestigious joint publication, VSMM, Eurographics GCH, UNESCO's Memory of the World, Arqueologica2.0, Archaeovirtual, Digital Art Week and other special events from CAA, CIPA, Space2Place, ICOMOS ICIP, and numerous others.

The scientific programme of Digital Heritage 2015 will focus around five heritage themes:

Digitization and Acquisition

Computer Graphics and Interaction

Analysis and Interpretation

Theory, Methodologies, Preservation and Standards

Digital Heritage Projects and Applications.

DigitalHeritageExpo will be the largest exhibition on Digital Heritage ever organised. The Expo will be hosted in the Parque de las Ciencias of the city of Granada from 28 September to 2 October 2015. Selected by a Programme Committee composed of arts, heritage and information and communication technologies experts, the best exhibitions proposals will not only be accessible to hundreds of participants of the Digital Heritage 2015 International Congress, but also to the thousands of visitors that the new waterfront museum area has been attracting. Visitors of the exhibition will travel through time and space, reaching diverse countries from around the world, from Jordan to Indonesia, from China to America, from Spain to Island, covering a historical timespan of over 5,000 years.

Contemporary Approaches in Training and Education for Cross-cultural Competence - Potentials, Challenges and its Limits

IACCM 2015 ConferenceVienna, Austria, 1 - 3 October 2015

The IACCM (International Association of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management), SIETAR Austria and CEMS are organizing an international conference on contemporary approaches in training and education for cross-cultural competence. As political, legal and economic barriers are disappearing, questions whether this will cause cultures to converge or harmonize or to resist and accentuate their differences are emerging. Still, business practitioners and scientists ascribe international business failures to a lack of intercultural competence. Research has shown that an adequate preparation has to take place, particularly prior to inter-cultural experiences, in order to stimulate intercultural competence development. Although literature shows us a rich conceptual and theoretical landscape on intercultural competence; still there is a gap between 'knowing' and 'doing'. Questions regarding the theoretical foundations of training and education as well as application of those cross-cultural theories in teaching, educational context and business training remain mostly unexplored. In particular power relations and their implications seem to play a crucial role e.g. in international business ventures.

This conference brings together scientists and practitioners alike in order to foster the dialogue between practice and theory in the cross-cultural field. The invited speakers of the conference are internationally well-known scholars (among others Professors Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger, Günther Stahl and Jonas Puck) and actors in this field.

The 4th European Colloquium on Culture, Creativity, and Economy will be held in Florence, Italy on 8 - 10 October 2015, hosted by the Centre for Research on Innovation and Industrial Dynamics (CIND) in collaboration with the Florence University. The Cultural and Creative Economy Research Group (CIND Creating) will focus on how the cultural economy is evolving and how we can understand its future. In particular, the organisers will look at the economic geographies of the creative and cultural industries.

During the past decades myriads of links between culture, creativity and economic practice have become major topics of interdisciplinary study. This colloquium aims to bring together leading edge scholars from across the social sciences to critically examine the intersections between these spheres and symbolic and culturally embedded values in particular, and how they pervade and are pervaded by the global economy. The organisers' aim is to create a space for a vibrant critical discussion about how 'creativity', cultural meanings, cultural phenomena, cultural workers and organizations are not only valuable to the market but increasingly drivers and framers of the systems of value and taste that economic actors attempt to capture and trade upon. Though culture and creativity have always been central to human civilization there is increasingly a need to understand culture and creativity as central agencies and motifs in the current stage of globalized capitalism, in the digital and knowledge economy, and in the development of human values, communities, regions and cities. The Fourth European Colloquium on Culture, Creativity and Economy (CCE4) will take up and continue an international and interdisciplinary debate on these topics. This debate was originally initiated during a workshop in Padua in 2011 and subsequently given an institutional character as a European Network of Excellence during European Colloquiums on Culture, Creativity and Economy in Uppsala in 2012 (CCE 1), Berlin in 2013 (CCE2) and Amsterdam in 2014 (CCE3).

The aim is to continue the debate while consolidating the emergent research network through follow-up events. Above all, however, the colloquium aims to bring scholars together in an exciting, intense and dynamic meeting aimed at generating not only new networks but new knowledge, approaches and practices. In other words, beyond simply constructing networks, the Colloquium will create a dynamic and sustainable discursive space.

The colloquium will feature up to 30 post-doctoral fellows, research fellows and faculty members from a range of disciplines and institutions (in Europe and beyond) who share a common interest in culture and creativity.

The 81st PEN International Congress: Translation = Creation = Freedom, organised by the Quebec Center for PEN International, will take place in Quebec City, Canada, on 13 - 16 October 2015. As Gaston Bellemare, Vice-president of the Quebec Center for PEN International stresses, it is a great privilege for its members to host the PEN family in the remarkable City of Quebec, the heart of Canada's francophone culture. For the first time since 1989, the Quebec Center is thrilled to welcome to the province of Quebec, writers from across the globe.

Translators and translation will occupy centre stage at the Quebec Congress. After the successful Girona Manifesto on Linguistic Rights and the PEN Declaration on Digital Freedom, the organisers believe the moment has come to state and consolidate the central role of the translator as a full fledge artistic creator and formally recognise translation as a vital vehicle of culture and understanding among human beings, and therefore as a necessary ingredient of peace and justice. This is the project that the Déclaration de Québec wants to launch.

The 81st PEN International Congress will coincide with the opening of the Maison de la littérature, a new part of the Bibliothèque de Québec and a place dedicated to writing that will serve as a site for creation, cultural activities and dissemination. The Congress will also coincide with the festival Québec en toutes lettres, being held on 8 - 18 October 2015. The festival is responsible for the literary content of the Congress and will offer a rich, diversified programme.

From the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in early 2011, through the Spanish indignados, the Occupy movement and the Gezi Park protests, to the Umbrella movement in Hong Kong and the New University/Rethink UvA in Amsterdam, over the past years different parts of the world have seen major forms of popular contestation. This conference organised by the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies examines this global wave of protest, characterised by the occupation of squares, streets and buildings - a diversity of tactics prominently involving online communication and emerging new political imaginaries. Particularly striking is that these protests have not been initiated or directed by traditional social movement organisations, but appear to be spontaneous political movements 'from below'. Yet, while these instances of popular contestation have been celebrated for their mobilisation, their creativity and their innovative use of social media, their long-term efficiency has been called into question. So far, this debate has primarily focused on the political and social consequences of the protests. For this conference, the organisers invite scholars from around the globe to expand the debate by critically reflecting on the cultural dimensions of contemporary forms of popular contestation.

The organisers are especially interested in research that examines emerging global cultures of contestation from one of the following perspectives:

Reflecting on questions of mobility: how the protests challenge and transform cultural boundaries, as well as established understandings of security, belonging and home? And what form of mobility is implied in the global spread of these protests?

How are issues of sustainability addressed? In what ways are the precarity of labour, ecological degradation and the preservation of objects of cultural and historical value put on the agenda? And to what extent are the protests themselves sustainable as effective forms of contestation?

What are the aesthetics of contemporary protest movements? In this context, we welcome explorations of the global circulation and proliferation of new imaginaries (including their linguistic, visual and acoustic manifestations), as well as of how these new imaginaries challenge and/or reproduce dominant cultural regimes.

What are the connective platforms that facilitate and structure today's protest communication and mobilisation? How do these platforms not only enable contestation, but also shape its focus and dynamics?

Please send an abstract (200-300 words) and short bio (max. 100 words) by 1 June 2015 to acgs-fgw@uva.nl

In your abstract, indicate for which of the four streams mobility, sustainability, aesthetics or connectivity you would like to be considered. Notice of acceptance will be given by 1 July 2015.

The 2015 Conference will explore the tension between the private and the public/common sphere, the raising contradictions between the principles we stand for, the systems we put in place to bring them to life and the behaviours we bow to or we even practice under the pressure of real and fake challenges. For instance, the tensions between the right to freedom of opinion and expression, with the right to life, liberty and security and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion will be discussed. The Conference will reflect on the tension between the right to the protection of the moral and material interests of authorship (in the digital word) and the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community and to enjoy the arts. As for its ambition, BtO 2015 will be a thought-provoking gathering made of large and small-scale dialogues, encounters, exchanges between local and other European cultural players.

Each issue will be explored in sessions of different formats: one conceived to allow discussion focusing on the conceptual/theoretical challenges, a second one designed to explore and discuss practical relevant experiences, a third one dedicated to collaboratively draw mid-term forecasts.

Each year, BtO connects over 250 people coming from the European cultural community and the hosting city, in a mutual exchange beneficial to the empowerment of both communities and individuals.

The Ecology of Culture: Community Engagement, Co-creation, Cross Fertilization

Lecce, Italy, 21 - 23 October 2015

Academics, researchers, professionals from the cultural sector, policy makers, artists, students and media from Europe and beyond will gather for the 23rd ENCATC Annual Conference on The Ecology of Culture: Community Engagement, Co-creation, Cross Fertilization to be held in Lecce, Italy, on 21 - 23 October 2015. ENCATC is the leading European network on cultural management and cultural policy education.

How does a cultural system work as a whole? What are the relationships and links between publicly funded, homemade and commercial culture? Seeing culture as ecology, rather than only as an economy, is helpful to stimulate discussion on the multiple values culture creates, rather than focusing only on financial or social ones. By applying ecological metaphors such as emergence, interdependence, networks, and convergence to culture, we can gain new understandings about how culture works, and these understandings in turn help with policy formulation and implementation.

The ecology of culture will make for a rich debate. By going beyond the obvious notions, it provides the opportunity to explain how culture functions in the context of its local environment. It has the potential to lead to new taxonomies, connections, visualizations, and a clearer picture of the proper characteristics of a particular cultural field. The dynamic three-day programme in Lecce is designed to explore different understandings and approaches to culture as an ecosystem.

The theme of the Museums Galleries Scotland Conference 2015, Fighting Fit: Ready for Anything (working title), will focus on developing the long-term resilience of the museum sector in facing challenging funding and political environments. The purpose of the conference is to offer a cost effective platform through which Scotland's museums and galleries can network and engage with practical and relevant content, helping the sector to develop and work towards delivering against the National Strategy aims and objectives.

All sessions should showcase creative and efficient solutions to the challenges faced. The conference will create opportunities for knowledge exchange between museums and galleries and other sectors. The day will consist of a mix of presentations, keynote and parallel sessions.

The organiser welcomes submissions from people outside the museum sector, keen to share knowledge relevant to the conference themes, as well as from those within the sector. The deadline for submissions is 16 March 2015.

Second International Conference on Cultural Relations in Europe and the MediterraneanValletta, Malta, 22 - 23 October 2015

The Valletta 2018 Foundation, responsible for implementing the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) project in Valletta and Malta in 2018, will be holding the Second International Conference on Cultural Relations in Europe and the Mediterranean. The conference is entitled Cultural Mapping: Debating Cultural Spaces and Places and will bring together academics and practitioners to exchange experiences and debate cultural mapping practices, as well as to explore practical and conceptual approaches to cultural mapping within a global context (with a particular emphasis on the Euro-Mediterranean context).

The Valletta 2018 Foundation's Cultural Mapping project is the first exercise of this kind to be carried out within the local context and aims to allow cultural practitioners, artists, researchers, policy makers and town planners to identify the sites and spaces of cultural relevance within each locality. The conference will seek to develop a better understanding of how various mapping practices are developing over time. The Valletta 2018 Foundation will be collaborating with the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra.

The 2nd International Cultural Academy on the topic of Public and Cultural Diplomacy in Times of Crisis will be held in Rhodes, Greece, on 22 - 26 October 2015. The International Cultural Academy is organized by the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, in cooperation with the Municipality of Rhodes, the Institute of International Relations and the Centre of Eastern Studies for Culture and Communication, Athens under the auspices of the Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO. The Academy aims at bringing together students, researchers and practitioners from interdisciplinary fields and settings to discuss and share theory, research and best practices, and to foster a dialogue on issues related to Public and Cultural Diplomacy. Apart from the programme of lectures held by members of the academic community, participants will have the chance to present their academic work and to discuss ideas and experiences with academics and professionals.

RE-DO, a Conference on Sustainability and Culture's Role in Sustainable Futures

Call for Papers and PanelsAarhus, Denmark, 28 - 31 October 2015

RE-DO, a conference on sustainability and culture's role in sustainable futures will take place in Aarhus, Denmark at the Moesgaard Museum (MOMU, www.moesgaardmuseum.dk/english/), the brand new museum on prehistory and ethnography in the midst of the woods around Aarhus, Denmark, on 28 - 31 October 2015. RE-DO is the second of a series of conferences organised by Aarhus University in cooperation with Aarhus 2017 (Aarhus Capital of Culture in 2017). The conference invites academics, practitioners, artists and activists to take part in the dialogue about sustainable cultures.

RE-DO indicates that sustainability has been, is and has to become something we do as part of our everyday practices and living in order to matter. In this sense cultural sustainability is viewed not just as an add-on to environmental agendas, but as the very precondition for their long-term success. Sustainability is already put to practice in every-day life, in citizen-based initiatives against food waste, in enterprising initiatives to avoid depopulation of outskirt regions, in integration initiatives targeting minority groups, immigrants and political refugees, and in all sorts of green initiatives in which citizens show care for biodiversity and wildlife conservation issues. Moreover, cultural sustainability may also serve as a productive focal point for rethinking policies and practices in traditional public sectors such as healthcare, education, children and elder care.

The conference aims at facilitating new dialogues between academics and practitioners in which knowledge-sharing, learning and development is at the core. As much as presenting answers and worked-through solutions, the conference aims at asking questions and stimulating discussion and reflection.

Papers and panels should be submitted to impact2017@au.dk by 1 June 2015. Authors will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance before 1 July 2015.

The European Culture Conference takes place every two years. It was first organised in 1990, hosted by the Centre for European Studies at the University of Navarra until its ninth edition in 2007. From the beginning it was coordinated by Professor Enrique Banús, since 2003 ad personam Jean Monnet Chair holder. Within the framework of the conference, European culture is not understood as a specific identity, but as encompassing all the cultural expressions manifested within Europe as well as in relation to other continents.

The 13th European Culture Conference does not have a unique theme, since it is especially defined by a variety of themes, which allows various disciplines to come together. The conference is organised in thematic sections, including Culture Theory, Cultural Identity; Multiculturalism, Interculturality, Migrations, Encounter between Cultures; Contemporary Culture; European Identity / The Idea of Europe; Europe: Culture, Economics and Law; Communication, etc.

The 23rd NEMO (Network of European Museum Organisations) Annual Conference on Re-visiting the Educational Value of Museums - Connecting to Audiences will take place in Pilsen, Czech Republic, on 5 - 7 November 2015. The conference offers an international view on the state of art of the museums' commitment in the educational field and new approaches to building and attracting audiences. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about projects in Europe and beyond, and engage with museum leaders and decision-makers on the EU level. Education is a well-developed field in museums, still museums have to work with and respond to ever-changing needs and demands from society. Who are the audiences, what are their needs and how can museums better connect to them?

NEMO's annual conference offers the opportunity to discuss such questions with policy-makers and experts from museums and museum organisations from all over Europe and get in touch with the involved EU level. In addition to European projects, approaches from museums in the United States, Asia and Ibero-America will be presented. Conference attendees can also participate in one of three workshops on audience development, digital engagement and museum advocacy strategies.

Additionally, the conference offers a rich programme of museums visits and events that will be organised in connection to Pilsen as the European Capital of Culture.

Please find the programme and further information on NEMO's website at www.ne-mo.org

Berlin Conference 2015

Berlin, Germany, 9 November 2015

A Soul for Europe announces its Berlin Conference 2015, to take place on 9 November 2015. The Berlin Conference takes place every two years. A Soul for Europe is an initiative born in 2004 with the first Berlin Conference. It brings together individuals from the cultural sector, politicians and representatives of the media, the business world and other areas of society. The Berlin Conference is a civil society platform to define and initiate specific, common steps to strengthen the cultural component of European development.

The issues to be discussed at the Berlin Conference 2015 are the following:

The challenges of our shared European values and their encounters with authoritarian policies and tendencies of renationalization;

South East Europe and South West Europe as examples for multiethnic, multireligious and multilingual spaces for co-existence;

Cities and their citizens as motors for European integration.

The discussion will be preceded by a conference on 8 November, focusing on right-wing extremism in European cities and strategies to deal with it, and it will be followed by the annual Europa-Rede (The State of Europe speech), held by Donald Tusk at the invitation of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Robert Bosch Stiftung and Stiftung Zukunft Berlin.

For more information, please contact: The Soul for Europe initiative, E.E.I.G. A Soul for Europe, c/o European House of Culture, Sainctelettesquare 17, 1000 Brussels, Belgium; e-mail: mail@asoulforeurope.eu; www.asoulforeurope.eu

Institute of Cultural Capital's 5th Anniversary Symposium

Liverpool, England, 10 November 2015

The Institute of Cultural Capital (ICC) is an academic research institute based in Liverpool that conducts collaborative and interdisciplinary cultural policy research. In November this year, the ICC is marking its 5th anniversary with a symposium event in Liverpool that will explore the work of the ICC in the national and international context. The event will take place on 10 November at Redmonds Building, Liverpool John Moores University. The symposium will feature panel discussions with senior academic researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in the areas of:

Cultural Policy, City Narratives and Major Events,

Cultural Leadership, Ethics and Values,

Digital Culture, Inclusion and Policy,

Participation,

Cultural Assets and Social Value.

The symposium is jointly supported by the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.

If you have questions about Institute of Cultural Capital 5th Anniversary Symposium, please contact Stephen Crone at smcrone1@liverpool.ac.uk.

In the second half of the 20th century, movements of heritage conservation and political democratization made strong impacts on state cultural policies. Going through dialectic currents of cultural hegemony/counter-hegemony, elitism/pluralism, and the pursuit of civil and social rights, citizens in Taiwan and around the world are now drawing their attention to the fulfillment of cultural rights. Agents' (including governments, cultural entrepreneurships, cultural institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and individual art-cultural practitioners) positions on, and engagements in, cultural affairs are shaping the central concerns of cultural governance study today.

Facing the ever complex global cultural scenario, how national/city cultural policies can be reconceptualized to meet the public interests has emerged as a key issue. "What's Next?" for cultural governance, does not only question the heads of states, the chiefs of national and municipal cultural administrations, but also cultural entrepreneurs and practitioners who intend to engage in public art and cultural affairs. The 2015 International Symposium on Cultural Trajectories: Cultural Governance, What's Next? is expected to stimulate responses and dialogues among people of various specialties. The following directions will form major themes of the conference:

Cultural Policy and Social Participation;

Cultural Industries and Art Markets;

Strategies for Museums, Exhibitions and Cultural Resources;

International Cultural Relations: New Initiatives in Taiwan, East Asia and Europe.

Paper proposals containing title, abstract of 300-500 words, contact information and affiliation should be sent by 8 May 2015 electronically to CulturalGovernance@gmail.com.

The world in which we live is still riven by the effects of the economic crisis that started in 2007 and by a range of unresolved conflicts. The world has however started to change in many ways with in particular the economic rise and/or social progress in emerging economies. A new international architecture for political and economic cooperation is starting to take shape (not without disagreement and conflict in some cases). These trends are underpinned by trends in comparative global regional and urban development, and are themselves changing the context in which urban and regional development occurs, posing a set of challenges to which cities and regions must respond.

The rise of China is one of the main drivers of the reshaping of the world, although it faces challenges as it seeks to reform its model of development by promoting sustainable and more regionally balanced urbanization. The conference will take place in Hangzhou where the international Congress entitled Culture: Key to Sustainable Development was organised by UNESCO, with the support of China, on 15 – 17 May 2013. The aim of this conference is to consider the ways in which (1) cities and regions throughout the world are facing up to and can adapt to new challenges, (2) cities and regions can help create an architecture and construct relationships that can contribute to the development of a world that is more harmonious (people-to-people and people-to-nature) and capable of promoting common prosperity, and (3) the map of economic and social development is consequently changing.

After the success of Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Zurich, Vancouver and Helsinki, the ELIA Leadership Symposium again brings together influential leaders from higher arts education institutions and universities across the globe for an important and timely discussion on current issues in leadership in higher arts education.

Post-apartheid South Africa is a laboratory of social transformation. Working within this context ELIA will address this changing world and reflect on how key notions of 'the canon', aesthetics and standards of excellence play out in a culturally diverse world. Institutions are shaped by history, by social context, by those who lead and teach, who are themselves shaped by history, education, context and institutional cultures. Increasingly though, institutions are also impacted by the pressures of those who fund them, either as public authorities or as fee-paying students. How do leaders of institutions - themselves in the process of transformation - disrupt, reinforce or nuance the tensions between the economic, the political, the cultural and the artistic dimensions?

While many art schools and universities are facing some of these questions in the light of economic pressures and demographic shifts, the intensity with which South African institutions are dealing with these will provide a new lens and focus for leaders of institutions to reflect on these issues of transformation and change.

The Annual Conference on Cultural Diplomacy is the world's leading event in the field of cultural diplomacy, hosted and organized by the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) in partnership with other leading institutions at the end of each year. The 2015 Annual Conference on Cultural Diplomacy: Building Bridges of Peace and Reconciliation in Times of Greater Global Insecurity, to be held in Berlin, Germany, on 10-13 December 2015, aims to present all practices that the field of cultural diplomacy has to offer to the international community for their application to try to remedy and solve the growing global challenges. The conference will bring together leading politicians, religious leaders, senior academics and celebrated artists together with representatives from areas of conflict in order to establish new institutions and initiatives that will help with these challenges using the practice of cultural diplomacy together with other practices and means.

Participation in the conference is open to governmental and diplomatic officials, academics, artists, journalists, civil society practitioners, private sector representatives, young professionals and students as well as other interested individuals from across the world. The Conference Committee encourages academic research and analysis of issues related to the goals of the Conference. The Conference Committee would therefore like to welcome the participants of the conference to submit a paper they would like to be considered for presentation at the conference as well as being included in the proposal document that will be issued following the conference and will be sent to all governments and leaders of the international community worldwide.

9th Annual International Conference on Global Studies: Business, Economic, Social and Cultural Aspects

Athens, Greece, 17-20 December 2015

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) was established in 1995 as an independent world association of Academics and Researchers. Its mission is to act as a forum where Academics and Researchers from all over the world can meet in order to exchange ideas on their research, and to discuss future developments in their disciplines.

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) will hold its 9th Annual International Conference on Global Studies: Business, Economic, Social and Cultural Aspects, in Athens, Greece, on 17 - 20 December 2015. The aim of the conference is to give an opportunity to participants to present their work to academics and researchers from different disciplines. Papers will be considered from all areas of business, social sciences, arts and humanities. There are no specific themes. You may participate as a panel organizer, a presenter of a paper, chairperson of a session or as an observer.

All papers are peer reviewed and published by ATINER in its specialized volumes of books (www.atiner.gr/docs/ALL_PUBLICATIONS.htm). Also, abstracts and the submitted papers will be published after the conference in ATINER's series of abstract books and conference papers.